Originally, vehicle instrument panels used analog gauges to display the operational status and performance of a vehicle using mechanical or electro-mechanical means. Vehicles include any device that is designed or used to transport people or cargo, such as bicycles, cars, motorcycles, trains, ships, boats, and aircraft. However, only factors that could be directly measured could be displayed to the driver or pilot using analog gauges. Common analogue gauges include, but are not limited to: speedometers which measure vehicle velocity; tachometers which measure engine revolutions per minute (RPM); odometers which measure distance traveled by a vehicle; fuel level gauges which measure the amount of fuel remaining in a vehicle; oil pressure gauges which measure the oil pressure within a vehicle's engine; and engine temperature gauges which measure temperature of an engine. Each analog gauge is connected with a sensor providing a signal in direct proportion to the value being measured by the gauge.
Often, some analogue gauges are aligned and grouped together to form an instrument cluster or instrument panel. The instrument panel may contain analogue gauges such as a speedometer, tachometer, odometer and a fuel gauge, along with vehicle indicators which indicate a condition of the vehicle, such as gearshift position, seat belt warning light, parking-brake-engagement warning light, and an engine-malfunction light. There may also be vehicle indicators for indicating low fuel, low oil pressure, low tire pressure and faults in the airbag (SRS) system. The instrument panel may also contain printed marks, such as a scale and numerals aligned with the scale.
As technology has advanced, analog gauges and sensors have been replaced by digital or simulated gauges and sensors. Digital gauges replace the mechanical or electro-mechanical means of analogue gauges with simple alphanumeric text or animated bars displayed on a display device. Digital gauges do not have the look and feel of analogue gauges. Simulated gauges attempt to mimic the look and feel of an analogue gauges on a display device. An instrument panel may include digital or simulated gauges which, rather than being connected directly to the sensors monitoring the performance of the vehicle, are connected with a digital controller that is connected with digital sensors. The digital controller then monitors the output of the digital sensors, processes the information, and displays the information on a display device positioned on the instrument panel in a manner useful to the driver or occupant of the vehicle.
Various types of vehicle information may be used and displayed on a display device, including digital and simulated gauges. A display device is an output device for the presentation of information in visual form, and includes things such as segment displays, 2-dimensional displays, and 3-dimensional displays. A display device may use a variety of technology to display the information, such as cathode ray tubes, a light-emitting diode display (LED), an electroluminescent display (ELD), an electronic paper (E Ink) display, a plasma display panel (PDP), a liquid crystal display (LCD), a high-performance addressing display (HPA), a thin-film transistor display (TFT), a light emitting diode (LED) display, an organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display, a surface-conduction electron-emitter display (SED), a Laser TV, a carbon nanotubes display, a quantum dot display, and an interferometric modulator display (IMOD). Numeric digital displays have been used where, for example, the speed of the vehicle was displayed in an alpha-numeric lighted display. Other vehicle information may be displayed using flat-panel displays, such as LCD displays, LED displays, OLED displays, or PDP displays, for the display of additional information, such as mileage or oil pressure.
Some vehicle information is more readily interpreted using a display device. For example, rather than lighting a generic “check engine” light when a problem is detected by the digital controller, a display device may allow the digital controller to display more detailed vehicle information, such as “change oil” or “low tire pressure.” In addition, a single display device can have multiple functions, thereby saving space. Finally, if a large color display device used, it is possible for the digital controller to include a navigation system and display navigation and/or map information on the display device. Such a configuration may display navigational maps which, when incorporated with a global positioning system (GPS), can display the vehicle's location on the display device.
Despite the flexibility of display devices for displaying vehicle information and simulated gauges, some consumers have preferred the behavior and appearance of traditional analog gauges. Analogue gauges may be used in conjunction with a digital controller by attaching an indicator, such as a pointer, to a small electric motor electrically coupled to the digital controller. The digital controller may command the electric motor to move the indicator between numbers on a scale representing, for example, miles per hour, printed on an instrument panel.
One drawback of large display devices is that they occupy a significant amount of area. Therefore, if a large display device, for example, is included in an instrument panel, some analog indicators may have to be omitted since there may not be enough space on the instrument panel to include both. As mentioned earlier, many consumers of vehicles prefer analog gauges to monitor certain parameters. Some of these analogue gauges, such as a speedometer, may be quite large and take up a significant amount of area on the instrument panel. This limits the amount of space available for a large display device, such as a large flat-panel display.
In order to get around this problem, some instrument panels include a large display device that displays a plurality of simulated gauges. Each simulated gauge comprises a series of animated digital representations which are used to simulate an analogue gauge on a display device. In order to realistically display simulated analogue gauges, high end graphics need to be used which typically require very powerful processors in order to realistically display and animate the digital representations used to simulate the analogue gauges. These powerful processors typically increase system cost, generate more heat, and consume more energy. Additionally, it is often difficult to realistically display the simulated analogue gauges, since the simulated gauges may not always animate smoothly, such as when an indicator needle or pointer is moving rapidly on a simulated speedometer. As a result, the simulated gauges may not appear realistic to a user.
Additionally, while some current driver vehicle instrument panels may include a real analogue gauge, graphics which accompany the analogue gauge are permanent and do not dynamically change to effectively communicate the status of a driving condition to an occupant. As an example, the occupant or driver can be driving the vehicle at a speed which is over the posted speed limit without realizing that the vehicle is at an excessive speed. While an analogue gauge, such as the speedometer, may indicate the current speed of the vehicle, the analogue gauge provides no warning or indication to the driver as to whether the current speed of the vehicle is over the posted speed limit. The vehicle instrument panel needs to effectively communicate the status of a driving condition to an occupant in addition to communicating information such as the current speed of the vehicle to the occupant.
As a result, it would be desirable to be able to display analogue gauges in a realistic manner on an instrument panel in conjunction with a large display device, without having to use powerful processors and without limiting the size of the display device. Additionally, it would be desirable to have a vehicle instrument panel which effectively communicates the status of a driving condition to an occupant in addition to communicating information such as the current speed of the vehicle to the occupant in order to increase driving situational awareness.